Keeping up your social life after retirement

Zelda West-Meads, agony aunt for You in the Mail on Sunday, on making new friends and reconnecting with yourself when you’re free from the 9-to-5.

Zelda West-Meads, agony aunt for You in the Mail on Sunday, on making new friends and reconnecting with yourself when you’re free from the 9-to-5.

Many people look forward to their retirement for years, thinking of all the spare time that they will have and the freedom from the responsibilities of a full-time job.

However, after the initial celebrations, sometimes people can feel a little flat.

So long work, hello life!

Retirement is of course a transition from one stage of life to another, and as with any important transition in life, it can take some getting used to. But just because you have retired, life doesn’t have to stop.

Some people might retire at 50, others at 70, and handled well, retirement can also be a time of excitement and positive change.

Quality time with people who matter

If you have a partner, then it will be lovely to have more time to spend with them. But you don’t have to spend all your time with your partner – you both need other interests to bring back into the relationship and to talk about.

It’s important to see lots of your friends. You can meet for lunch or a coffee or perhaps take your respective grandchildren out together to a children’s farm for the day.

Old skills, new uses

You might not be working but you are still the highly skilled and talented person that you were last week! You’ve got all that experience which has grown and developed over many years.

You can now use your skills whenever you want, how you want and where you want. You could even start your own small business or perhaps you might want to campaign on an issue close to your heart.

Share your experience

It will increase your confidence and perhaps your altered self-esteem to share your skills and knowledge with others.

There are plenty of opportunities to use that knowledge to help younger people, through mentoring, volunteering or charity work.

You might want to help with reading at a primary school or perhaps you have an area of expertise and could run a night class at your local college. I even know of one man in his early eighties who goes to visit people in a local hospice where many of the residents are YOUNGER than him!

Keep busy and keep learning

Research shows that the happiest people in retirement are the busiest people – and that people with three or four hobbies are happier than those with just one or two.

If you are fit and well, you might want to do sporty things such as golf of tennis or join a walking club.

If you are less physically able, it might be an ideal time to study – you could even take a degree – or you can join things such as book groups or bridge clubs. If you can, travel to exciting places.

The trick is to take up hobbies and activities where you will meet and socialise with people. Then who knows what exciting encounters the next chapter in your life will bring?

So Busy

When I retired from nursing the common question was what will you do all day, and you will be bored! Well I now tell everyone that I have never been busier and don't have time to sit and think most days and have made lots of new friends through crafting and reconnected with old ones. I know have a more fulfilling social life than I did when I was surrounded by people everyday.

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Angry

Retired at 58 after working all my life and saved all my life hoping to get a pension at 60. The Government took this away from women born in the 50s. I now have to wait until 66 and have had no notification. Having lived on my small redundancy, I now have to find ways to fund life until I am 66. Some women are really struggling with no money. The Government will have taken £40k off me by the time I get any pension (if).

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Worrying but why

There is so much to keep people busy in retirement I am wondering what the fuss is about . I think people need more help with financial planning in their 20's and 30's and should be encouraged to save . i see adults who say they have no money who buy daily coffee , spend £15 per week on lunch meal deals then are scanning apps to see what take out they will have for supper. I encourage anyone under 40 to look at the new LISA out in April 2017 which actually tops up what you save.